liberation through purification

Monthly Archives: September 2012

Yesterday I was reading an article about access to healthy foods in Texas. A reader made a very insightful comment about the difficulty of changing adults’ eating habits because of their emotional attachment to foods. His point was that it’s not just lack of access to healthy foods that keeps adults eating so poorly. It’s the strong emotional bond.

Each morning since I volunteered in Nigeria I have read Iyanla Vanzant’s daily meditation book, Acts of Faith. It was published nearly 20 years ago. I have had it about that long, so you can imagine how tattered the book is now. Today’s entry is about allowing yourself to grieve when long-term relationships have ended/transitioned. Thinking of both the reader’s comment yesterday and today’s Acts of Faith reading, I had an aha moment! FOOD IS ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS! It’s a lifelong relationship that we have from womb to tomb. Also, because food is with us “’til death do us part” we are very emotionally attached to it.

Reflecting on my 365livefoods journey, these past 90 days have been nothing but pure, raw emotions. Now I realize I have been grieving the loss of my former eating habits. Writing this almost seems trite! Food is marginalized in our culture! We are the fast food nation because we have commoditized and standardized food. We have all been sold on the necessity of convenience and cheapness. We treat food like we have no attachment to it. Lack of recognition to the strong emotions we have to food keeps us in denial about why we aren’t able to accomplish our health/lifestyle goals. The multi-billion dollar weight loss industry is proof of that, as the numbers on the scale continues to rise!

Since this blog is for the community as well as myself: Please share any insight on how to help adults make necessary dietary changes in a compassionate way acknowledging our emotional attachment to our eating habits.

Until next Sunday,

lillieth

P.S. Life is poetic, and as always comes full circle! The person who gave me the Acts of Faith book, is also the person that helped me transition to a vegetarian lifestyle. Now she has joined me on my raw foods journey, and has become my life coach to help me birth Organic Soul Foods. Poetic!

The change of seasons is reason to revisit my purpose for this blog. After two months of writing this blog, I’m feeling blah! Though I’m finally realizing success at eating raw, I still feel blah. These two weeks of raw eating have been good. I have eaten raw 85 percent of the two weeks. I am getting a rhythm: fruits (smoothies, etc) during the day, and vegetables, and nuts after 4pm. This is not a hard fast rule, it’s just how things have naturally developed. It’s more convenient to eat fruits during the day. I can eat on the go. It also helps that I have found this great new Vegan/Raw restaurant. You know you’ve found a winner when you’re craving raw foods. Yippee for that!

I’ve lived long enough that there are lulls in life. Times when you’re not excited about things. I believe this is when it’s important to have purpose and direction. When things are going slowly, purpose and direction reminds you to stay the course.

The question for today is: What do you do to keep the momentum on projects or life goals that take time to accomplish?

First, I want to apologize for not posting last Sunday. Due to extenuating circumstances I was not able to keep my commitment. My last post on September 2, 2012, I stated that the next time I post, “I will have been fully raw for 7 days.” Unfortunately that was not true last Sunday, so I decided to give myself another week. This process of going fully raw is not simply an “eating thing”, it is teaching me to be patient with my human weaknesses. This process is teaching me to keep believing in my ability to accomplish goals even when it seems otherwise.

Alas, 2 weeks and 2 coaches later, I can finally say I have successfully completed 7 days raw.Yippee!!! It’s a feat I don’t take lightly. I want to celebrate this moment while continuing on the path of being fully raw, and attaining all the life goals I have laid out for this journey. Within those two weeks I have had a session with my life coach and now a raw foodist coach. Years past I would not have seen the value of utilizing outside help to accomplish goals. Now I know that people who accomplish great things in their lives don’t do it on their own. To take a sentiment from President Clinton’s DNC speech, it’s with shared, collective assistance that greater things can be accomplished.

So this week I am very elated to make this post. The 7 days raw have been good. I look forward to more raw food, and other victories to come. Please continue to send comments. This week how about making comments about difficult feats that you’ve accomplished, and how you were able to do it.

I’ve been working with a lifecoach, and she has me reading the Science of Getting Rich. One tenant is to visualize exactly what you want, you have to crystallize a picture of what you want in your mind. It is day 63 of 365livefoods! In this blog I have stated my travails of transitioning to becoming fully raw.

Today I’m shifting to making a vision statement! This is difficult for me to write. Next Sunday I will have been fully raw for 7 days. There I said it! Please pray for me!:)

Anyone who has any recipes or words of encouragement will be greatly appreciated!